Far North

Day 155

"Eneumbered forever by desire and ambition
Theres a hunger still unsatisfied
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon
Though down this road weve been so many time"

Bloody hell, after 5 months under constant sun and most of the time in Tropics I arrive to New Zealand and get sunburnt for first time! Nothing too bad though, just a fleshwound :)

After Cook Islands I stayed 1 day in Auckland and this time decided to take trip up to Sky Tower since weather was absolutely brilliant. Here some photos of Auckland from up high.


No, didn't end up doing Sky Jump. My budget just cannot handle 10 seconds of thrill which costs 270 dollars.

So my plan to explore New Zealand is to do it from top to bottom. For the top part I needed to head 400km north of Auckland and all the way to Cape Reinga, the northernmost tip of New Zealand. First job was to get as close as possible there using public transportation system - which btw. SUCKS in New Zealand. After almost 8h and 2 bus changes I finally arrived to Ahipara, southernmost tip of 90 mile beach. I had booked dorm bed there in YHA hostel but as I got there the reception bodybuilder-lady told me "we dont have share rooms". WTF?! "Well, why is it possible to book share room from here via YHA website and pay for it as well?", I answered. "But we have cabins available, you can sleep there." Nice. So now I had cabin with own TV, Fridge, Double bed and veranda for dorm bed price of 26 dollars(12 euros), not bad.

Next day was I took a tour to Cape Reinga. Ahipara was still good 100km south from New Zealand's north tip so basically only way to get there was by tour. Weather was just funny again, it poured down like crazy most of the trip up there but 5km before Cape, clouds moved away and we had clear blue sky at the Cape where Tasman Sea and Pacific meet. Managed to grab my Kodak moments there with near perfect weather.

On way back we drove down the 90 mile beach which had major dejavu...Fraser Island. It was just like Fraser Island all over again. We made last stop on sandhills for some...um, not that usual activity :)

Nice day, nice tour and good value for money since it costed only 55 dollars and included lunch. And btw. since some of the people brought their own lunch(wtf?!), I grabbed extra sandwiches after tour for dinner, free food ftw! :)

Next day I went walking up the hills of Ahipara and got my sunburn. Was a bit careless and didn't put sunscreen on since it looked like it would be cloudy day. Well, we are in New Zealand with it's 4 seasons so clouds just cleared up all the sudden and it was again almost cloudless sky for most the day. Here is one shot of Ahipara from hills.

Today I left Far North and heading south again. Now I'm in Paihia, centre of Bay Of Islands. Really beautiful place and historically quite significant, but more about that in next entry.

How is New Zealand so far? Hmmm, there is something not quite right here. I can't put my finger on it, but something is out of place. Traveling scene is very different from Australia which kinda surprised me since I was expecting more or less same. It looks like there are much less single travelers here and LOT more couples traveling. Also, whereas in Australia majority were traveling with buses, here vast majority have their own car. Well, I guess it makes sense since distances here are not that big.